The high speed vessel Swift (HSV-2) gets underway with a tethered TIF-25K Aerostat in Key West, Fla., April 24, 2013, to conduct a series of capabilities tests to determine if the Aerostat could participate in Operation Martillo, a joint, interagency and multinational collaborative effort to deny transnational criminal organizations air and maritime access to the littoral regions of the Central American isthmus.

The high speed vessel Swift (HSV-2) gets underway with a tethered TIF-25K Aerostat in Key West, Fla., April 24, 2013, to conduct a series of capabilities tests to determine if the Aerostat could participate in Operation Martillo, a joint, interagency and multinational collaborative effort to deny transnational criminal organizations air and maritime access to the littoral regions of the Central American isthmus.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Navy introduced its first squadron that combines combat helicopters with unmanned aerial vehicles at an air base near San Diego on Thursday, calling the approach the future of warfare.

The squadron of about 140 sailors, called the Magicians, will work off coastal combat ships that are smaller and faster than destroyers and aircraft carriers.

"We've been using multimillion dollar destroyers to chase Somali pirates," Admiral David Buss said. "This approach is designed for near-shore environment where our current experience shows us we're most likely to encounter threats."

The new approach combines MH-60 Romeo helicopters the Navy currently uses with the MQ-8 Fire Scout, a Northrop Grumman-built drone that looks and launches like a helicopter.

Where the helicopters are designed and built for antisubmarine and surface warfare, as well as search and rescue, the Fire Scout will be equipped and used for surveillance, target acquisition and relaying information to its controllers, at least for now.

The unmanned aircraft is controlled by two "pilots" on the ground or on a ship up to 110 miles away. It can stay in the air for at least eight hours, compared to the helicopter's maximum air time of 3.3 hours.

The Navy has been testing the Fire Scout since 2007 and deploying it since 2009, using it for counter-narcotics operations and in Afghanistan. In 2012, two of the drones crashed in separate incidents, and the Navy briefly grounded its Fire Scout fleet. Another was shot down over Libya in 2012.

The strengths of the Fire Scout lie in how long it can monitor situations, Buss told a news conference.

"Helicopters can't stay airborne as long as the Fire Scout," he said. "With the Fire Scout's endurance of up to eight hours, the helicopter crew can return refuel, rearm and re-man while the Fire Scout maintains contact."

Buss acknowledged that the Navy doesn't have a playbook for how to mix manned and unmanned flying warfare.

"The ink has not dried on any set of criteria yet," he said. "As with any new systems and any new technology, we work through the bugs from early on."

Northrop Grumman is looking forward to seeing how the Navy actually uses the Fire Scout and already has an upgraded version in the pipeline, according to Jim Zortman, sector vice president of global logistics and operational support.

"We put it in the hands of these smart, young sailors and they figure out ways to operate it that we never thought of," Zortman said. "They take some little thing we barely noticed and do something amazing with it while something we paid a lot of attention to, they'll barely notice or use at all."

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the homeport location of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt.

NORFOLK

Earlier this year, while sounding the alarm on looming federal budget cuts, the Navy warned it would be forced to ground four of its 10 air wings - a short-term money-saver that top brass said would degrade pilot skills and cost three times more in the long run.

The service has dialed back on those warnings, and, thanks to an infusion of cash from Congress in March, the Navy believes it can avoid shutting down any air wings, which would have involved wrapping multimillion-dollar fighter jets, helicopters and other carrier-based planes in shrink-wrap and putting them in storage.

Instead, Rear Adm. Ted Branch told reporters Monday, his command is dealing with sequestration by drastically reducing flying hours to a level known in aviation circles as a "tactical hard deck."

"We only have one really big lever to pull in Naval Air Force Atlantic, and that's in flight hours," said Branch, who oversees six East Coast-based aircraft carriers and the air wings that fly with them. An air wing typically consists of eight squadrons and about 65 aircraft.

To save money, Branch said, flight hours are being cut to the minimum needed to maintain baseline safety standards and efficient aircraft maintenance. The drawdown in flying hours is expected to save the Navy $2 million per month, per air wing, Branch said.

Plans call for cutting flying hours at four air wings. California-based Carrier Air Wing 2 was reduced to the "tactical hard deck" level last month after the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln entered Newport News Shipbuilding for refueling and overhaul.

Carrier Air Wing 7 will be the first East Coast-based air wing to feel the budget pinch once it returns this summer from deployment with the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Instead of averaging 25 hours in the cockpit each month, the air wing's F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet aviators at Oceana Naval Air Station will be limited to 11 hours per month, Branch said.

Pilots will spend more time in simulators, he said, but the reduction of time in the air means some pilots will fall behind in career milestones tied to training hours. The simulators are realistic, Branch said, "but it's just not the same as the airplane."

Carrier Air Wing 1, assigned to the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, would be next in line for reduced flying hours, Branch said. The fourth air wing with reduced flying hours is Carrier Air Wing 9, attached to the Bremerton, Wash.-based aircraft carrier John C. Stennis.

The two-star admiral said ramping up flying hours before deployments will likely cost the Navy more in the long run, but he didn't have specific cost estimates.

For now, no air wings have been targeted for a full shutdown, but Branch left that as a possibility, depending on funding and operational demands abroad.

The US Navy's Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) has released a request for proposal (RFP) for a new VXX presidential helicopter to replace the service's ageing Sikorsky VH-3D and VH-60N fleet.

As expected, NAVAIR has adopted a risk-averse development strategy in the wake of the failed attempt in 2004 to substantially modify the Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland VH-71A Kestrel with a new airframe, engine, drive system and tail rotor.

"Offerors will be highly encouraged to propose an existing, in-production helicopter platform from which the VXX will be derived," a NAVAIR document reads.

"It is the Government's desire to hold development to an absolute minimum on the VXX Program and focus the program effort on integration of mature subsystems on a mature platform."

While NAVAIR says that minor changes to whatever platform is selected are inevitable, "change to major components such as drive train, rotors, engines and basic structure is highly discouraged." As such, the navy is encouraging potential contractors to avoid proposing immature technology.

NAVAIR also says that any proposed aircraft should already be certificated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or another civil airworthiness authority with a bilateral agreement with the FAA. A US military certification or a clear and imminent path to gaining such a certification is also acceptable.

NAVAIR's Presidential helicopter programme office is working with the Naval Air Warfare Center - Aircraft Division (NAWC-AD) at Saint Inigoes, Maryland, to assemble the aircraft's executive communications suite. The contractor will have to integrate that suite onto the aircraft, the navy document says.

The document also states that the contractor will have responsibility for furnishing the cabin interior and the overall performance of the VXX system.

AgustaWestland is expected to offer the AW101, while Sikorsky will likely bid the S-92. Bell-Boeing may offer a variant of the V-22 Osprey. The winning airframer would be expected to deliver six developmental helicopters, nine low rate initial production aircraft and eight full rate production aircraft over a total of about eight years.

NORTH ARABIAN SEA (May 13, 2013) A Sailor signals an F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the Jolly Rogers of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 onto a catapult on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). Dwight D. Eisenhower is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility promoting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and support missions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

PACIFIC OCEAN (May 15, 2013) A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block 1B interceptor missile is launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) during a Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy test in the mid-Pacific. The SM-3 Block 1B successfully intercepted a target missile that had been launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands in Kauai, Hawaii. Lake Erie detected and tracked the target with its onboard AN/SPY-1 radar. The event was the third consecutive successful intercept test of the SM-3 Block IB missile.

ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 17, 2013) An X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator prepares to execute a touch and go landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). This is the first time any unmanned aircraft has completed a touch and go landing at sea. George H.W. Bush is conducting training operations in the Atlantic Ocean.

ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 14, 2013) An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator launches from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77). George H.W. Bush is the first aircraft carrier to successfully catapult launch an unmanned aircraft from its flight deck.

The new request for information (RfI), released by NAVSEA's Aerial Target and Decoy Systems Program Office (PMA-208), details top-level performance requirements essentially identical to those set out for the original MSST competition.

PMA-208 said it was "reviewing the requirement and performing market research" as part of the MSST re-planning effort.

ATK was awarded a USD96.8 million, 50-month system development and demonstration (SDD) contract by the US Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) in August 2008 for the design, development, integration and test of the GQM-173A aerial target system, comprising a two-stage unmanned aerial target, a ground launcher and associated support equipment. Under the management of PMA-208, the MSST is being developed to meet the US Navy's requirement for a two-stage target surrogate representative of the Russian 3M54 Klub (NATO designation SS-N-27B 'Sizzler') anti-ship cruise missile.

A photo accompanying this release can be found at http://media.globenewswire.com/noc/mediagallery.html?pkgid=18898.

Triton is specially designed to fly surveillance missions up to 24 hours at altitudes of more than 10 miles – allowing coverage out to 2,000 nautical miles. The advanced suite of sensors can detect and automatically classify different types of ships.

"First flight represents a critical step in maturing Triton's systems before operationally supporting the Navy's maritime surveillance mission around the world," said Capt. James Hoke, Triton program manager with Naval Air Systems Command. "Replacing our aging surveillance aircraft with a system like Triton will allow us to monitor ocean areas significantly larger with greater persistence."

A Navy and Northrop Grumman flight test team conducted about a 1.5-hour flight that started at 7:10 a.m. from Palmdale.

Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor to the Navy's MQ-4C Triton Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program.

"Triton is the most advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] unmanned aircraft system ever designed for use across vast ocean areas and coastal regions," said Mike Mackey, Northrop Grumman Triton UAS deputy program director. "Through a cooperative effort with the Navy and our industry partners, we successfully demonstrated the flight control systems that allow Triton to operate autonomously. We couldn't be prouder of the entire team for this achievement."

Additional flight tests will take place from Palmdale to mature the system before being flown to the main flight test facility at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., later this year.

In 2008, Northrop Grumman was awarded a systems development and demonstration contract to build two aircraft and test them in preparation for operational missions.

The Navy's program of record calls for 68 Tritons to be built.

Triton carries a variety of ISR sensor payloads that allow military commanders to gather high-resolution imagery, use radar to detect targets, and provide airborne communications and information sharing capabilities to military units across long distances.

At 130.9 feet, Triton has a wingspan larger than the world's most common commercial airliner, the Boeing 737. Combined with an efficient engine and other aerodynamic design features, Triton can fly 11,500 miles without refueling.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in unmanned systems, cyber, C4ISR, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.

OKINAWA, Japan (May 18, 2013) The race team from the Headquarters Company of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 5 cruises down a hill in a hand crafted banana box car on Camp Shields during a modified soap box derby. The event was part of the deployment training for NMCB-5. NMCB-5 is supporting Navy and joint forces throughout the U.S. Pacific Command. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class John P. Curtis/Released)